Vox Populi: The Line Doesn’t Lie

By 4 p.m. on Heller Eve two years ago, forty people stood in line along One First Street. At the same time this past Monday, the day before oral arguments in Heller’s sequel, McDonald v. City of Chicago, there were only seven of us.

As the sun set over the Supreme Court, we wondered why the line wasn’t longer; after all, this was the case that would resurrect the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and introduce a new constitutional order for all fundamental rights! Nevermind where all the gun nuts were—where were all the abortion warriors, railroad robber barons, education rights revolutionaries, and health care socialists?

But the line doesn’t lie. We were just too wrapped up in McDonald’s hype to listen. This was going to be a simple incorporation case. […]

But none of this is to say that McDonald’s twenty-four hour line was not extraordinary in its own right.